Opinions

Judge Loya case: Lack of political focus on RSS gave CJI the opportunity to dismiss petitions!

By Amaresh Misra,
The Milli Gazette Online

Published Online: Apr 20, 2018

I have read the judgement by CJI dismissing an independent inquiry in the Judge Loya case. It is a revelation.

The judgement skirts the major issue of the mysterious circumstances in which Judge Loya died. Instead, the focus is on the exoneration of the four judges, who rebutted charges made in the Caravan magazine about foul play in Judge Loya's case.

People on social media are reacting emotionally to to the Judgement. Congress has said it is a 'sad letter day' for justice in India.

While such reactions are understandable, no one, either on social media or elsewhere, is going beyond moral outrage to challenge or question the judgement on its demerits.

The problem with Dave, Indira Jaising and Prashant Bhushan, the senior lawyers arguing on behalf of the petitioners, seems to be that they focussed unduly on the role of 4 Judges of Maharashtra who gave statements that Judge Loya died of natural causes.

In the end, the case became a slugfest where lawyers attacked the 4 judges and the CJI defended them...

The lawyers did not focus on the basic aspects of Judge Loya's family being contacted by Baheti, a RSS man. It was Baheti whose role, whose entry into the sequence of events, is suspect. In fact, Baheti of RSS, who even arranged for Judge Loya's body to be brought to his family, after which the family discovered bruise marks and other indicators of foul play, is the key to the whole mystery.

Lawyers demanding an independent inquiry into Judge Loya's death should have stuck to one point: how and why did a RSS functionary enter the scene of the death/murder of Judge, who was hearing a case in which Amit Shah, the President of BJP, a party affiliated to the RSS, was the prime accused.

This lack of argumentative focus on the main, political aspect of the Judge Loya case, gave the CJI the opportunity to divert the issue and focus on the non-issue of the statement of 4 judges. It became very easy for the CJI to defend the 4 judges and write a 114 page judgement on petitions seeking an enquiry into Judge Loya's death--a judgement that glosses over the main issue and dedicates 90% of its space to the allegations made against 4 judges.

Mr. CJI, why did you avoid the Baheti-RSS issue, and decide to focus on non-issues of the 4 judges?

<misra.amaresh#gmail.com>

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